In June of 2008 I started taking photos and posting menus on WeedTracker.com for a local, Long Beach collective called CCLB, Canna Collective Long Beach.

The whole thing started as a fluke – I just wanted CCLB to keep up with their menu posting because gas prices were soaring and online people wanted to know what was available before they made the long drive – sometimes coming all the way from San Diego – a nearly 300 mile round trip.

My round trip to CCLB was only 10 miles, so during June I started my volunteer gig as the Menu Guy for CCLB. Over the July 4th weekend, through a series of events I’ve written about elsewhere, I officially became an unpaid, community volunteer at CCLB and through October of that year I photographed nearly 80 different strains, some of them several times…

Goals and Format

I had several goals in mind while taking these photos:

Capture the most average, “representative” buds to photograph. I was not looking for the biggest and best buds to photograph, just the buds that an average patient would get if they went to the collective.

Use a repeatable format so people could focus on the herb, not the photographs.

The format I settled on after about a year was 3 photos per batch.

The first shot was of four (more or less) buds grouped around a quarter to give the idea of size. I weighed each of these buds to add to the image when I processed the photos.

The second photo would be the single bud shot.

The third shot was the close up, and by 2010 I had finally started to achieve some great shots with the close-up.

For awhile I took a forth shot – a jar shot from above.

I usually took about 60-80 photos of each batch to make sure I had what I needed to pick the best shot.

These photos were used as “menu photos” for the websites of the various non-profit collectives I volunteered at during this time.

Fun Fact: Each photo in this collection is 420 pixels by 420 pixels – except 1. Can you find the one odd-sized photo?

Dedication and Thanks

The Wall of Weed is dedicated to my friend Josh Howard who got me started on this photo project in June of 2008 when he was the budtender extraordinaire at CCLB. Thanks Josh!

A special thanks goes out to those who helped facilitate this project over the last few years – Eli, Nichole, Sam, Val and Harvey.

P.S. I know the question you have in your mind, and the answer is yes – I did sample more than 90% of the batches shown here… Happy 420!

Featured

This is where I always pause, while my brain quickly runs through the mental catalog of the numerous art objects I’ve created over my lifetime, the wide variety…

“I do all kinds of stuff…” I usually end up replying.

If they look like they might want to hear more, I might say, “Mostly I make collages. Just about everything I do is based on collage – putting separate items together to create a new image, object, idea, sound-scape etc.”

Most people seem to go blank at this point. That’s when I throw in a new idea for them to consider, “Right now I’m focused on consciousness, and how to make art out of consciousness.”

I’m very proud of the brave people who want to find out more after that…

Introducing PORTFOLIO

112 Paintings

98 Drawings

155 Collages

41 Photo Works

9 Videos

Sound Collages – 6 albums, 7 EPs, 5 Singles and 4 Early Works

I’ve spent the last week (about 80 hours of computer time) adding work to the online retrospective show of my art since 1991. This is a major upgrade to a site I started work on in 2011 – if you visited it before you’ll find that the whole site has been extensively updated.

It’s been a very involved process, and just might be my favorite website I’ve ever built.

One day Godwin and I were discussing what the enlightened person might be like. As usual the conversation was wide-ranging and eluded to ideas from the Buddhist texts, Krishnamurti, Ramana Maharshi, Taoism and other traditions. We both agreed that the usual Theravadin conception of the arahat as a rather stiff and unsmiling monk seemed to be inadequate. “Bhante”, he said, “why don’t you go through the Tipitaka, take out all the descriptions of arahats and put them together?” I thought this a good idea and agreed to do it.

Some months later I showed Godwin what I had written and he was delighted with the many interesting things I had found. But he also mentioned several things I had missed which he thought should be included. The enlightened one’s ability to be at home anywhere, one of his favourite ideas, was one thing he mentioned. He also urged me to include something about non-duality, a concept he had become much interested in during the last few years.

After some more reading and writing and a few more discussions with him I put what I had written in its final form and got ready to show it to him. But it was not to be. Death intervened and our twenty-three year long friendship came to an end. Now reading through what I have written, I do not know whether it is an accurate description of the enlightened person but I am again and again reminded of Godwin himself. I offer this piece of writing as a humble tribute to the kindest friend and the wisest teacher I have ever known. Continue reading →

about onehumanbeing.com

This website is designed, built and maintained by Jon, onehumanbeing.

onehumanbeing.com was established in 2008 as a way to initiate a new season of art for myself.

It is a super-project that launched a number of different sub-projects that have come and, mostly, gone (into my digital portfolio) such as redbotlovesyou.com, The Philip K. Dick Reading Club, The Turning, The MMJ Project, The MMJ Lists, The All-Seeing Eyebama, and UFOverdriver.

Most of this work has been done as Jungian experiments to explore the use of consciousness and the collective conscious as both subject matter and as an art material.